node-tar has Race Condition in Path Reservations via Unicode Ligature Collisions on macOS APFS
Summary
| CVE | CVE-2026-23950 |
|---|---|
| State | PUBLISHED |
| Assigner | GitHub_M |
| Source Priority | CVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback |
| Published | 2026-01-20 01:15:57 UTC |
| Updated | 2026-06-30 03:17:35 UTC |
| Description | node-tar,a Tar for Node.js, has a race condition vulnerability in versions up to and including 7.5.3. This is due to an incomplete handling of Unicode path collisions in the `path-reservations` system. On case-insensitive or normalization-insensitive filesystems (such as macOS APFS, In which it has been tested), the library fails to lock colliding paths (e.g., `ß` and `ss`), allowing them to be processed in parallel. This bypasses the library's internal concurrency safeguards and permits Symlink Poisoning attacks via race conditions. The library uses a `PathReservations` system to ensure that metadata checks and file operations for the same path are serialized. This prevents race conditions where one entry might clobber another concurrently. This is a Race Condition which enables Arbitrary File Overwrite. This vulnerability affects users and systems using node-tar on macOS (APFS/HFS+). Because of using `NFD` Unicode normalization (in which `ß` and `ss` are different), conflicting paths do not have their order properly preserved under filesystems that ignore Unicode normalization (e.g., APFS (in which `ß` causes an inode collision with `ss`)). This enables an attacker to circumvent internal parallelization locks (`PathReservations`) using conflicting filenames within a malicious tar archive. The patch in version 7.5.4 updates `path-reservations.js` to use a normalization form that matches the target filesystem's behavior (e.g., `NFKD`), followed by first `toLocaleLowerCase('en')` and then `toLocaleUpperCase('en')`. As a workaround, users who cannot upgrade promptly, and who are programmatically using `node-tar` to extract arbitrary tarball data should filter out all `SymbolicLink` entries (as npm does) to defend against arbitrary file writes via this file system entry name collision issue. |
Risk And Classification
Primary CVSS: v3.1 5.9 MEDIUM from [email protected]
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
EPSS: 0.002330000 probability, percentile 0.141860000 (date 2026-07-01)
Problem Types: CWE-176 | CWE-352 | CWE-367 | CWE-176 CWE-176: Improper Handling of Unicode Encoding | CWE-352 CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) | CWE-367 CWE-367: Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition | CWE-367 Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition
| Version | Source | Type | Score | Severity | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | [email protected] | Primary | 5.9 | MEDIUM | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N |
| 3.1 | ADP | CVSS | 8.8 | HIGH | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:L |
| 3.1 | [email protected] | Secondary | 8.8 | HIGH | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:L |
| 3.1 | 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c | Secondary | 8.8 | HIGH | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:L |
| 3.1 | CNA | DECLARED | 8.8 | HIGH | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:L |
CVSS v3.1 Breakdown
Attack Vector
NetworkAttack Complexity
HighPrivileges Required
NoneUser Interaction
NoneScope
UnchangedConfidentiality
NoneIntegrity
HighAvailability
NoneCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
NVD Known Affected Configurations (CPE 2.3)
Vendor Declared Affected Products
References
| Reference | Source | Link | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|
| bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi | 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c | bugzilla.redhat.com | |
| access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:18480 | 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c | access.redhat.com | |
| access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:2926 | 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c | access.redhat.com | |
| github.com/isaacs/node-tar/commit/3b1abfae650056edfabcbe0a0df5954d390521e6 | [email protected] | github.com | Patch |
| github.com/isaacs/node-tar/security/advisories/GHSA-r6q2-hw4h-h46w | [email protected] | github.com | Exploit, Mitigation, Vendor Advisory |
| access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:2144 | 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c | access.redhat.com | |
| access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:18868 | 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c | access.redhat.com | |
| security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2026/cve-2026-23950.json | 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c | security.access.redhat.com | |
| access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:6192 | 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c | access.redhat.com | |
| access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-23950 | 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c | access.redhat.com | |
| CVE Program record | CVE.ORG | www.cve.org | canonical |
| NVD vulnerability detail | NVD | nvd.nist.gov | canonical, analysis |
No vendor comments have been submitted for this CVE.
Additional Advisory Data
| Source | Time | Event |
|---|---|---|
| ADP | 2026-01-20T02:00:55.870Z | Reported to Red Hat. |
| ADP | 2026-01-20T00:40:48.510Z | Made public. |
Solutions
ADP: RHSA-2026:18480: Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 10)
ADP: RHSA-2026:18868: Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9)
ADP: RHSA-2026:6192: Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces 3.27
ADP: RHSA-2026:2926: Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer 1.2
ADP: RHSA-2026:2144: Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer 1.3
Workarounds
ADP: Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.
There are currently no legacy QID mappings associated with this CVE.